This week, I'm attending a trade show at Disney World, in the Dolphin hotel. This is a very nice hotel (with free in-room Internet access!), but there's something inherently wrong with traveling here on business.

1. I had to tell Scooter, my five-year-old son, that he couldn't come with me to Disney World. No parent should have to go through that.

2. There are no babes here. Or, at least, all the babes are married and have three kids. Of course, my situation is exactly the same, but there are some convention-goers for whom this is a big disappointment.

3. Nobody should have to conduct business in a building with a 50-foot pastel cartoon fish sculpture on top. It just isn't right. And I don't care if the hotel is called "dolphin," those are fish .

4. You have to go miles from the hotel if you want to do anything Not Disney. I mean that literally. Disney owns everything for at least 2-3 miles in every direction. So if you want to do anything that, say, normal adults might want to do, you have to have a car and drive quite some distance.

5. Orlando in the summer is miserably hot and humid. Late spring isn't much better.

By the way, I'm not the only curmudgeon here. The company sponsoring the conference has told me that "this is absolutely the last time we're going to the Dolphin."

(Originally Posted 5/17/04)